


Time Split

by FleaBee



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, One Shot, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:41:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12057303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleaBee/pseuds/FleaBee
Summary: Rimmer decides to give his younger self some different advice which doesn't change anything like he assumed.





	Time Split

Young Arnie was woken up from his sleep. He looked up to find a strangely familiar man trying to get his attention. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, taking a good look at the man,  a weird hologram man wearing a green outfit was crouching next to his bed, trying to get his attention.

Noticing Arnie paying attention the hologram began talking. "Listen up Arnie, what I'm about to tell you is very important." Pausing to make sure Arnie was listening. "You aren't doing very well in school. You're having trouble keeping up with the other boys."

"I try my hardest. I study all the time and ..." Arnie started defending himself, finishing with a sniffle. No matter how hard he tried, he just could not keep up with the other boys.

The hologram looked at him with understanding eyes. He didn't know how anyone could understand how hard schools was for him.

"Arnie, mummies I mean your mother." The man corrected himself looking embarrassed about the slip up. "Is going to get a letter from the school recommending you get kept back a year."

He wondered if this man was his older brother, born before mummy and father got married. Someone older than John. That would make his mummy far too long if that were indeed true, it would be scandalous!

"I don't want to be kept back a year," Arnie argued.

"I know you don't Arnie. Believe me, it will be for the best. You need to be kept back a year. You need to find a tutor to help you catch up. You need to convince mummy to allow you to be kept back a year. You'll never be able to catch up, you're already too far behind from when you were in the hospital, and you'll just keep getting further behind."

The hologram before him looked like he was speaking from experience. Arnie traced the scar he had from the accident when the landmine his brother put in his sandpit exploded. He'd been carrying his bucket and spade and tripped, flinging what had been in his hands ahead of him onto the landmine and causing it to explode. That fall had saved his life but had still ended up with six weeks in the hospital, five of those weeks he'd been unconscious. The hologram had the same scars from that accident. He had other scars that Arnie also had. Arnie tracing each scar he noticed the man also had.

"Are you me?" Arnie asked.

The man looked startled for a moment.

The man whispered, "How did you know?"

"You look like mother, and you have the same scars." Arnie tried to point, forgetting about his gloves he was forced to wear to bed. His glove going through the hologram slightly.

Arnie looked at the other bed directly next to him seeing that Thickie was now awake and looking at his future self.

Seeing that he'd been noticed the other boy asked a question to the hologram. "If your bonehead from the future, do you know what happens to me?"

The hologram turned toward Thickie and snapped. "Your super rich and have the most gorgeous wife named Sabrina Mulholland-Jjones."

Thickie pulled how a notebook from his bedside table, "How am I super rich?"

"You invent the tension sheet." The hologram replied trying to turn back to Arnie. As he went to speak Thickie was asking another question.

"What's that?"

"Bubble wrap cut into paper sized squares painted red." The hologram snapped.

Thickie started taking notes.

"What happens to him?" Thickie pointed to a bed directly across from both boys.

"We're not here to talk about you or him. We're here to talk about me," The hologram said, trying to remain calm but getting angry anyway.

"How do you die?" Thickie then asked.

Arnie went pale. The hologram didn't look that old, like grandma old. He didn't even look as old as his parents. He didn't want to die young. He didn't want to die at all.

"I died in a radiation leak on the ship I was working on. Everybody died." The hologram replied like it was old news that didn't really matter.

"Did I have a family before I - you die?" Arnie asked.

"No, and before you, as you didn't have a girlfriend either."

Arnie was thoughtful for a moment before he asked. "What about a boyfriend?"

The hologram spluttered. "What, no of course not. Mummy and father would never approve. You didn't have anyone."

"So I didn't even have a friend?" Arnie's face fell.

The hologram considered this for a moment before he answered. He seemed to be having a fight with himself.

"Take your gloves off and write this down." The hologram instructed.

Arnie nodded, and Thickie handed over a piece of paper from his notebook and a pencil.

"You have one friend. He can be a git at times. However, he is a good friend when it counts. His name is Dave Lister, he is six years younger than you."

"So he's a baby right now?"

The hologram was startled. "I didn't even consider that. Yes, he is. He comes from Earth, England, Liverpool. You meet him on Mimas when you are thirty one. He had been living on Mimas for six months by that point. He works on the JMC mining ship Red Dwarf with you."

"So he dies in the radiation leak."

"Yes," the hologram replied.

Arnie wasn't sure if that was the truth or not. Something didn't sound right with how his future self said yes.

"I don't think you can save everyone. You can save Dave. He is lazy and has no motivation for what he wants to do with life. But is really good with machines. He could be an engineer if he wanted to be. Maybe with the right motivation, he can be. You, on the other hand, can't."

Arnie's face fell, that was one of his dreams to make his parents proud. "What about-"

The hologram interrupted before he could ask. "Same with being an astronavigation officer. Find something that you enjoy doing as your job. Convince mummsie to let you repeat the grade and get a tutor. Do your best to be happy. Forget about doing things that make mummsie and father happy. Can you do that for me, Arnie? It's going to be hard, especially being happy, but don't give up."

Arnie nodded. "I will find something that will make me happy."

"I'm going to invent the tension sheet," Thicke said excitedly.

The hologram looked annoyed for a moment before he looked up and walked and disappeared from view.

* * *

Arnold Ace Rimmer was stunned for a moment at the final crew member from the Red Dwarf entered the messy room on Starbug. It was him, a hologram version of himself looking just like the hologram who changed his life. Same clothes and everything. He'd not only changed his life but Thickies as well.

Thickie was the only person in his original year level who did worse in school than he did. After the visit from the hologram, both boys agreed to be kept back a year. With Arnold not being the only one being kept back, his mother agreed, and he was able to get a tutor.

He and Thickie became good friends, his first real friend, sticking together when they were teased about being older and Arnold being the tallest boy in his class. He listened to his tutor and knuckled down hard eventually catching up with everyone else and surpassing them in some cases. Though he did always need to work harder in maths and science.

He eventually got into the Space Corps, and Thickie became rich for inventing the tension sheet.

It was only when Thickie meets the woman his future self said he was going to marry that he started looking for Dave Lister, his future self's only true friend.

He found Dave working in a grocery store on Earth. He was based on Earth, so it wasn't too far out of his way. They managed to start a strange type of friendship, and he encouraged the young man who built his own motor bike from scrap to forget about his lack of education and attempt to become an engineer or mechanic.

 

_"Trust me Spanners, I had to work hard to get where I am today. I didn't do well in school, even got kept back a year. My teachers who knew me back then would not believe that I'm here today. School work did not come easily to me."_

_"I couldn't even last a full day at art college, how am I going to last at university? I love art." Dave asked._

_Ace encouraged. "It's still art Spanner, just a different sort of art. Give it a go, you might surprise yourself."_

_"What happens if I don't? Or I hate it like Art college?"_

_"Then you know you gave it your best shot and won't always be wondering what if." Arnold encouraged the young man. "You seem to be a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I bet you'd love to make the machines that I fly. Imagine working and building your own jets and space craft._

_Dave smiled imaging just that. "Alright, I'll give it a go."_

 

Dave had done very well for himself. He'd transferred from his college on Earth to Saturn tech after doing well. He went aboard the Red Dwarf JMC mining vessel for a couple of years where he met his wife, Kristine. Ace had always been nervous while Spanners was working on the Red Dwarf. He couldn't exactly explain that he and Thickie meet his future self who said everyone died in a radiation leak. No one would believe that, especially Dave. He didn't exactly have the close relationship with him that his hologram self had indicated having.

Ace didn't need to worry too long, Dave was snapped up by the Space Corps and eventually into the unit he was working with. Dimension and time travel experimental technology. The Red Dwarf had not been a waste for Dave, it was where he met his wife, Krissy. She's been on maternity leave with their twin boys when the radiation leak happened.

"I'm leaving. Me and him will just not work." Ace said to the Dave Lister who wasn't his Dave, his Spanners. He didn't want to tell his other self that he was only who he was today because of him, the bitter hologram. That if hologram Arnold Rimmer did not travel to the past and keep him back a year, he'd be that man instead of the man he was today and quite frankly he liked who he was today. He had a feeling that his other self would get jealous that he wasn't him and could've been if only he were the one visited by a time traveller.

"Where will you go?" Lister asked, taking the offered cigarette.

"Other dimensions to explore," Ace replied.

And it was true, he wanted to see how different everything else had turned out. If other versions of himself had their lives changed by the bitter hologram or if they'd ended up in the same place as himself without outside interference.


End file.
